Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner; Wednesday, Dec. 4, 1996
Stewart M. Powell, Examiner Washington Bureau
Pat Christen, executive director of the AIDS Foundation, and Phill Wilson, co-founder of Los Angeles' National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum who spoke about AIDS at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last August, are among the top candidates for the presidential post that coordinates federal AIDS policies.
According to a report in Wednesday's Washington Times, President Clinton is leaning toward appointing Wilson, an AIDS patient, but White House officials cautioned that the decision is weeks away.
Other candidates for the post include Michael Isbell, director of Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, and Jim Graham, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, an AIDS testing and support center in Washington, D.C.
Christen, who has been with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation since 1985 and its head since 1989, has overseen the overhaul and streamlining of the huge agency. She's also lobbied effectively for more federal and state spending on AIDS.
AIDS claimed 343,000 lives in the United States through June, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. An estimated 650,000 to 900,000 Americans are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Wednesday that presidential aides have discussed a successor to Fleming, but that the president has not yet turned his attention to that post.
Clinton is busy weighing candidates to fill seven vacancies in his 14-member cabinet and is concentrating first on his national security team, including a secretary of State and a secretary of Defense.
Clinton, noting that this is World AIDS Awareness Week, vowed Tuesday to "keep pressing until we have a vaccine and ultimately a cure."
Vice President Al Gore, speaking for the hoarse president during a White House ceremony on the awareness week, cited Clinton administration actions in the first term to combat the illness.
Gore noted that the White House has obtained a 40 percent increase in AIDS research supported by the National Institutes of Health, shortened the time it takes the Food and Drug Administration to approve new AIDS therapies, relaxed Social Security disability rules so that AIDS victims could receive help, created the Office of National AIDS Policy at the White House and established a federally sponsored forum to map future research.
Clinton's selection will be his third AIDS czar. His first, Kristine Gebbie, resigned after being criticized by AIDS activists for being ineffectual.
Fleming, a former senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services and a protege of HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, took over from Gebbie.
Kim Mills, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign Fund, said her organization favored AIDS activists for the post who had the background offered by Wilson and Christen.
"They certainly sound like excellent candidates," Mills said. "It would send a powerful signal because these are people from the front lines."
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay lobbying group, spent $2.5 million helping Clinton win re-election.
Mills, noting that some AIDS activists have urged cabinet rank for the new AIDS czar, said that was less important than the selection of someone who has the president's ear.
Mills emphasized: "We want this person to have access, and we want the president to take seriously the recommendations that he or she makes."
Mills said the Clinton administration has performed pretty well in its efforts to intensify federal efforts against AIDS. But she added, "There's always room for improvement."
Mills said the GOP-led 105th Congress will offer a crucial test for the federal commitment to AIDS research.
"It's critical for Congress and the administration to recognize that the (anti-AIDS drug) cocktails are amazing steps forward, but we still do not have a cure," Mills said. "We cannot shy away from the quest to find a vaccine and a cure that will end this epidemic forever."
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